Have you ever been best friends with a monster? A demon? A person who pushes you away, yet you cradle their heavy body until it weighs you down so much you can no longer stand on your own two feet? Fear is that friend. It's the best of the best because it's always in you, with you, holding on to you. But this best friend is toxic. This blanketed emotion should be lifted off flat bodies of scared people and folded neatly at the end of the bed.
Sometimes, you might feel fear seep into the cracks of your insecurities and crawl out of the pores of your skin. But something even more uncomfortable, is when fear comes in contact with change. Fear despises the excitement one feels with altering environments. Once, I thought it was me who hated change, but it is not. I welcome change, I welcome temporary situations that morph into new memories and adventures. Life is ever-changing and will last only as long as our bodies hang on. But something I have seen, and felt, is the anger in fear's eyes as it suffocates and wraps its fingers around change's throat. Its clenched jaw and tight clasp squeezes the perspective out of change. It warps the face of change and negatively reshapes its views on situations.
But what we as humans forget is that fear too, is only temporary. Change too, is only temporary for so long, until the inevitable happens again and we have to accept it. Sometimes, it is hard to shift the face of perspective back into its proper place, but we must try. We cannot let fear lock us in a wired cage and throw away the key with its invisible hands. We will always have the power to unlock it and embrace change's touch. If you look hard enough, change is always smiling back at you, so why not provide it with the same affection?
*Below is a poem taking on the persona of fear:
The Night She Left
I tried to touch
her soft face as she wept
for anyone else's hands.
Hunched over,
she pressed her back
to the fire in my body
and blistered her unscathed skin,
untouched skin.
I drew my own lines on her smooth spine that day,
creased my own folds
on her forehead
eyes
and smile.
She liked when I took control.
But this woman's a tease.
Why was she always gripping me
pulling me into
her
soul she found a place for me to fit tightly
too tight though, it hurt her heart
and tremors shook me loose from her hold.
Even unwanted and confused, I love her still.
Sometimes I can even here her whisper
in my ear
though I can't understand her words,
I know she loves me too.
But last night as I lay next to her
holding her sweet head in my palms,
she got up and left.
Sweat soaked bed, she stood and walked out the front door,
lighting her house on fire
she pulled the flame in my belly
inside out
with hands I had never seen before,
a touch I had never felt so angry
press into me
so violently she shattered the glass of my heart
but the chunks fell neatly into the blazing blue and orange.
Though my glass is not flammable,
I have never felt my body so burned.
Feminism Redefined
